IMax stuff

Unfortunately I have lost a lot of my rough cuts, somewhere within the 100 odd GB this project ate off of my computers HD. I have however found some of the key cuts, and of course the long awaited (or at least the long-hyped) final cuts complete with sound and all. I thoroughly enjoyed working on this project, from the late night re-edits to the early morning skype meetings with the art-director. Who to her credit is mad as hell but does know when things need a few frames shaved off for seemingly no reason. I found it very useful having meetings every other day and found that I was able to meet the demanding work shcedule, having only 10-14 days to actually work on this, including rendering, music sampling and arranging, particle creation, motion graphics and then doing half of it again in Russian. Overall I really learned a lot both about how much I can rely on myself to be able to do as well as the demands of the industry. It has done nothing but re-enforce my desire to work in th eindustry. Now enough blabbing on my end.

These first four videos are for the animatic, sorting out the timing and such, at this point nothing was under copyright, so the maimn issue was just to see how the text could look along with some particle experiments.







Finished animatic



Now unfortunately due to me foolishly saving multiple versions within thesame after effects file it has been almost impossible to track down the significant renders, however many of these would just be timing tweaks with little bits fitted on to the explosion.

So here's the final products, I would like to thankk all the guys at Fortune St. for having me work on this project and for being wonderful people to work with ( and thats not just cause im hoping they'll invite me to the grand iMax opening ).



and in russian

some more random stuff

been doing some more after effects tutorials trying to expand into the other elements of the trapcode package, mainly form and shine which can give some great results.

more vj stuff

not sure if it's a bit too busy now but im still quite happy with it, might try a new project with softer colours

more vj stuff

Been playing around with form after looking at some stuff on that there internet (they say it's gonna be huge)....




this was the first render which was looking pretty basic.




Heres the 8bpc render from the early stages. bit too much flare and definitely felt a bit static.



I'm pretty happy with this, there's definitely room for improvement, but i'm getting a nice feel for trapcode stuff which is always good....

finally got the slit-scan stuff on to youtube...

So after being homeless an internetless for about a month I have finally gotten my stuff on to youtube. In the same way as before, I tried to see how many varieties of image I could get from this effect combined with the overall blackness of the footage. I also did some experiments with some added filters and colour correction, to see what i could get. Overall I found this projecvt wholly enjoyable, though I can't help but feel that my final render is somewhat unfinished, but hey, it's always good to have somewhere to go, we'll see what I can get over the summer. so without further stalling:


















































And yae, the final render

Pitch project

This project was based around creating an animation bible for pitch to an actual person from industry. Unfortunately for me it clashed with some work that I was doing out of town, so I was forced to talk to my group and take a very back-seat role.

However they have all been working dilligantly at it and you can see the various fruits of their labours here

http://www.facebook.com/home.php?sk=group_165569696838404¬if_t=group_activity

I was only able to render out a quick background and a couple of concept sketches, but my external HD is being a bitch so I will have to try and get them up in the near future...

more vfx

Found some more of the VFX stuff that was done for fortune st that was hidden away in my youtube uploads. Again im still not able to say whether any of this was used in the final renders....

the negotiated brief

For this brief I had to meet with my tutors several times and discuss an idea that I wanted to make into a brief. The idea could be anything essentially, so I decided to investigate a special type of effect known as 'slit-scan'.

Here's an example



and this is from 2001: a space odyssey the first major commercial use of the effect.



I decided to use a P2 camera to get my own footage. I decided to focus on fire spinning and circus skills. Partly because it's a hobby of mine that I have yet to incorporate somehow, but mostly because of the exaggerated movements within the body to create fluid manipulations of objects.
I shot the footage at 50fps for slow motion, knowing i can always speed it up again in post.

Also some videos tend to go out of focus and zoom erratically, this is because I wanted avriety in my footage so I could see how different film styles would work.

One of the key differences when working with this effect digitally is that the computer uses an alpha ramp as a means of working out how to distort the frames in either direction. With this in mind I also set about doing some experiments with various types of alpha channels including fractal noise to various degrees of distortion and trying to incorporate movement into the alpha as well.



















There's a lot more to come but I have to get away from the computer for a few days. Generally out of these first filming sessions i learned that there is a lot to be found in distorting the light sources such as the LED or the fire. My next shoot, I used a pitch black photography studio and the LED staff to produce some really cool movies for slit-scanning.

SOme vfx

Here's a couple of the VFX test files from my work with Fortune St,





not much i know, but im still not allowed to post anything until the project goes live

postpro stuffs

here's some of the bits offootage we filmed for this project. I wish we had done it at 50 fps instead of 25 to get rid of all the motion blur, but this was my first time working with footage so i guess we're supposed to make mistakes....







unfortunately the greenscreen was far too small for our needs....



This was my first attempt at removing my head, i was later to discover that I was working with the wrong bit of footage than everone else....



Here was the rotoscope for the right footage



I will try and get the final render up as soon as i can just waiting to hear wher my group uploaded it....

hey here's he final render

Overkill Low Resolution from George T on Vimeo.

erk....

So, i have very much been neglecting my blog this term. Very naughty i know but that is not to say I haven't been busy. I have been working with 'Fortune St' a London based Graphics company, working on a new iMax cinema project. However it's all very hush hush and i have been told I am not allowed to post up any of the work that I have done for them until the project goes public (patents,copyright and all that lovely tediousness).

On the other side I have been working on a couple of projects.

One is working with some 3rd years on one of their projects called beneath the boughs which you can follow on this link as well as my own blog: http://stephsanimation.blogspot.com/

I have been asked to do some foley artistry which I have been working on today. Need to touch up the sounds before i upload them on to here however. I am also supposed to be doing some 2d compositing but so far haven't been given any footage to work with that.

We wer also given a cinematography project to do with Frankie. I joined a group aiming to do a 1920's style silent comedy. For this project I was Ass. Cameraman and prop/costume designer. Providing the outfit for our damsel in distress, and creating a painting that could break apart without too much injury. The results were very good (if i do say so myself)



Finally, I have been working on a post production project with two other 2nd year students. So far we have gotten as far as shooting our footage which unfortunately is waaaay too big for me to easily upload. The next stage will be getting on to some rotoscoping and trying to create a realistic blood-spurt. Will hopefully have some more regular updates to show soon.

back in black

Well the chritmas cheer is over and the new years eve hangover has begun to subside and so it is back to work.

Our main project this term is to choose between a pre-production assignment in which we'd make an animation bible.

Or we have the option of doing a post-production assignment in which we will have to composite 30/40 seconds of animation and film.

I have chosen to go postal.

This is the first experiment I did using 'Composite'.



I own none of those images by the by, it was just an experiment to get to know the program. I found that the technology was a combionation of very intuitive and complete bast***. However it definitely seems like something I need to master (and thankfully is a lot friendlier than maya).

I think the next big step will be to try and composite something in this before taking it into after effects to really jazz it up.